Still outta inspiration

Sorry to anyone who has been eagerly tuning in (ha) - I'm all out of inspiration this week. Work is busy, Dave and I are Making Plans, and blogging just isn't taking my fancy. I'm sure I'll be back very shortly though, probably by the end of the week (be sure to diarise it ;) )

In the meantime, many thanks to brother-in-law-to-be for introducing me to the wonderful world of XKCD. Just like Flight of the Conchords, it makes my world a brighter place. Even if I don't get some of (a lot) of it. Similar to my experience of watching Duplicity last night, now that I think of it. Usually I love Julia Roberts films, but this one left me so confused. I'm not sure what happened, although I do now know that there is a difference between lotions and creams. And that Clive Owen is aging nicely. I'm pretty sure that's not all I was supposed to take from it though.

Here's one of my favourite offerings from XKCD - there are a thousand others i like too. You may have noticed Corporate Speak Friday slipping by the wayside (with a whole 3 installments - woohoo!). Might be time for XKCD Friday.

I think we should see other people

a conversation of late late last night:

Me: What do you think of pewter?
D: Pewter? Huh?
Me: You know, the colour
D: Pewter isn’t a colour. It’s a dish
Me: No, it’s a colour – the dishes were made from pewter the metal. The colour is the colour

of the metal

{insert lengthy and slightly surreal conversation about what is and isn’t a colour – a highlight was “if you can say “pass me the *insert colour*” then it isn’t a colour – like you can’t say “pass me the blue” therefore blue is a colour. You can say “pass me the pewter” therefore pewter isn’t a colour”. Right Dave. what about orange?}

D: So, if pewter was a colour, what colour would it be?
Me: A dark metallic grey
D: Right.
Me: So, I’m really liking pewter and aubergine at the moment
D: What colour is aubergine?
Me: A dark purple
D: So why not just say dark purple?
Me: Well, because there are lots of shades of dark purple. I mean aubergine
D: But aubergines come in different shades of purple
Me: No. No, all aubergines are aubergine coloured
D: Now you’re just being racist.

Me: Night Dave.

This morning at work I get an email from Dave - he obviously spent the morning on dictionary.com and has pretty soundly proven (proved?) me wrong:

pewter
Noun
1. an alloy containing tin, lead, and sometimes copper and antimony
2. dishes or kitchen utensils made from pewter [Old French peaultre]

aubergine [oh-bur-zheen]
Noun
Brit the dark purple fruit of a tropical plant, cooked and eaten as a vegetable [French, from Arabic al-badindjan]

black adj. black·er, black·est
1. Being of the color black, producing or reflecting comparatively little light and having no predominant hue.

white n.
1. The achromatic color of maximum lightness; the color of objects that reflect nearly all light of all visible wavelengths; the complement or antagonist of black, the other extreme of the neutral gray series. Although typically a response to maximum stimulation of the retina, the perception of white appears always to depend on contrast.

oh. oh just whatever Dave.

I wish I had more hair

because then maybe I could have my hair like this for the wedding:
I was browsing Twigs and Honey today (something of a weekly ritual) and saw this post on Myra's lovely blog. How much do I love these hairstyles? this is the exact look I'm going for, except then I go home and look in the mirror and see...ummm... somewhat less hair than those models have. Not that I am balding, but my hair is quite thin and frizzy and doesn't grow very long. Maybe I'll have to just wear it up in a pony tail. I could throw caution to the wind and spring for a new scrunchie.

I find Myra's attitude and business something of an inspiration, she used to be a scientist who made a few hair bits and bobs, but now she has a thriving business and her wares are featured in heaps of magazines and tons of blogs and websites. I wish I had the guts and the talent to make a "job" out of creating beautiful things. Cue interior designer daydream again...

Smiling at the office, and then all the way home

I know I said I wouldn't blog about work, but this guy just makes my day.

He works in the mailroom and periodically appears at our window in a very "here's Johnny"-esque manner to collect our mail.

He LOVES mail! and I don't even mean that in a patronizing "he loves mail but it's a menial task while I am up here in a real office" kind of way. He manages the mailroom, actually, and it is probably a very challenging role. You wouldn't know it though, cause Mailman always (and I mean always - unless he has intermittent meltdowns in the bathroom, which I doubt. Doesn't seem the type) has a smile on his dial.

Yesterday, he called to say (you might want to sit down for this) that the trial of the new courier company has finished, and, after extensive consultation, the mailroom has put forward a recommendation that we stick with the new courier company! You could practically see the excitement radiating out of the phone.

I vote we give Mailman a promotion and make him the head of one of the dour, world weary, upstairs departments. I'm not even being sarcastic - there should be more people like this guy in positions of power.

(p.s. I do know his name - I'm just not going to write it on the blog. Can you tell that I'm nervous about appearing elitist? I honestly don't think I'm better than Mailman, I just really enjoy him)

* image isn't of Mailman, but is a dramatic recreation.

Advice please!

I just bought this dress. It’s by Jessica’s Attic at Republic. I’m quite pleased with myself as it was on sale for a ridiculous amount.


Pretty eh?

The colour doesn’t come through very well – it’s definitely a candy pink rather than a coral-y shade of pink. The straps are beaded with clear/silvery beads. I am trying to find a picture of the back of the dress, as the way the straps join to the back is really cool, but there’s no pic to be found. I’ll get Dave to take a picture at the wedding (because you’re that interested huh?)

It is perhaps not the perfect dress I was in the market for, but at the price I paid I’m not complaining {too much}. Of course, today I was in Debenhams in the Red Herring concession and saw this dress, which I now desperately want. Such is life…

So, onto the next question: what colour accessories should I match with the dress? I’m thinking shoes, a purse, and maybe a wee hair thingy. Any suggestions?

Pretty purple and a pinch of pink!

How's that for a nice bit of alliteration?! today I'm back on the weddings with a lovely inspiration board put together by Mel! isn't it great? I love the purple and pink together, so elegant and modern and pretty. It was originally inspired by this board which had us both gasping late last week. We are very much into the aubergine right now.

By the way, there is a ton of other stunning inspiration to be found on The Wedding Decorator, you should check it out...

yay SPRING!!!!

Spring has sprung in Manchester finally. I'm so pleased, it was such a beautifully sunny day today - everyone was sitting around outside eating their lunches. A nice change from the usual! We went for a walk yesterday up to the lovely Lymm Dam. There were daffodil meadows everywhere and lots of dogwalkers and happy families running about. We even got an icecream, it was quite the Spring outing. Here is a picture of Lymm Dam - so nice to get out of the city:

Here are some nice Spring things for you today...

These lovely spring chicken earrings

This cute cute wee chicken bowl - perfect for holding chicken earrings no?

this print - perfect for a nursery

I don't even know what you'd do with this, but it's cute eh?

I am so pleased that Winter seems to be over. Hope I haven't jinxed it.

Corporate Speak Friday!

Today's buzz-phrase is courtesy of Dave's work:

"…include a multi-tiered approach that encompasses recruiting through a robust pipeline of potential professionals by partnering with external organizations…"

What does that even mean? Seriously? my interpretation:

"Hook up with recruitment companies and other organisations to get some really good employees in"

Anyone else want a go?

(I know the bee image is different to the last couple of weeks. Work doesn't like the first bee and it's been blocked. They may be on to me).

I love Michael Jackson (even more than I love Bruce Willis. You didn't think it was possible did you?).

I need Michael Jackson tickets. Need them, I tell you.

He’s playing a residency in London, don’t you know? (if you live in England you must know; it’s all anyone’s been talking about. Well, that and Jade Goody, which I’m not even going to get into). There was a pre-registration process, which I did. Then a select number of pre-registered people got a special code which allowed them to buy up to 4 tickets as of 7am yesterday. I was lucky enough to receive a code, but thanks to work’s no gmail policy (probably put in place for this very reason…) I didn’t get my code until 6pm last night, by which time all the allocated presale tickets (approx half of all the tickets) for the 30 concerts were sold out. They reckon another 20 gigs are to be added over today, and my presale code will still work until 7am tomorrow, but I don’t have my code with me at work so I can’t keep trying! (that, and I’d probably get fired if I spent all afternoon watching ticketmaster). Also, the new gigs are getting into January next year so I doubt we’d be able to go anyway – anything post-July is getting difficult.

The remaining tickets are being released at 7am tomorrow. I’ll be getting up early to give it a go, but I’ve stopped holding my breath.
Incidentally, ebay auctions and the like are already through the roof. I love Michael a lot, but £600 is a bit steep.

Whatever happened to the days of lining up outside the CD Store to buy tickets? Those who camped the longest got the golden ticket. Seems fairer to me – now you’re battling thousands of other people online and if your internet connection can’t hack the pace, you’re out. John McClaine wouldn’t have had a shot (just watched 4.0 last night – the technology is still above him. Thank goodness Justin Long was there with his Nokia).

A very British weekend

We just had a lovely relaxing weekend. Friday we were out with friends, and Saturday was mostly spent chillin out. But then on Sunday we had a lovely British field trip day! We caught a train to Skipton (and in good National Rail tradition, there was track maintenance going on that meant we spent most of the morning on a replacement bus) and visited Skipton Castle.


Not the most impressive we've seen, but lovely none-the-less, and full of families on outings, which was nice to see. The weather was on form too, with gusting winds and hailstorms.

After the castle we caught another train-bus to Bradford for the Yorkshire Area Brass Band Championships (before the mocking begins you should know that I am a brass band enthusiast, and played in a band up until about 4 months ago. Yes, I used to go to band camp. and no, there were no flutes).


Some very good playing was heard, and some excellent KFC was eaten.

A castle and a brass band contest - all in all a lovely British Sunday (we didn't have a Sunday roast though. Something of an oversight).

Corporate Speak Friday

Today's buzz-tastic word is: Onboard (on-bawrd)


"installed and functional within a vehicle: on-board computers for aircraft".


We have some new employees starting with us on Monday. But they aren't starting work - nope, they're onboarding. They don't have start dates, they have onboarding dates. And onboarding agendas.

I love Bruce.

Recently, I have been enlightened. It may shock you to learn that until Monday night I had yet to see a single Die Hard movie. I had no idea what I was missing (answer: the greatest film experience of my life). John McClane rocks.

We are currently working our way through the quadrilogy (yes, that is what it’s call on the box. And yes, I love it). Last night was number 2; the aptly named Die hard 2: Die Harder. I loved it. I especially loved how I joked that there would end up being a showdown on top of the plane. And there WAS! Ha!!!

This weekend I hope to get the other two under my belt. These movies are right up there with Jurassic Park.

Sorry for my absence, I have been really sick for the past few days, and not really feeling up to much except for Bruce indulgence. I had a wonderful time in London though, and Avenue Q was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a very long time. I didn’t stop smiling once, it was great. Very un-pc, but great! I had a lovely time catching up with Mel and eating lots. The culinary highlight was a delicious red velvet cupcake from the Hummingbird Bakery. Amazing.